Admit it—buried at the bottom of your closet is a shoebox filled with old heart-rate monitors, pedometers, calorie trackers, and other secret santa analog gifts designed to make you fitter. You used them one, twice, then decided they were bulky and the minimal data they provided wasn’t particularly worth the bother of strapping to your body every time you went for a run.
Next came the app-ecosystem. There are now literally hundreds and hundreds of apps of varying quality for planning and logging your exercise and nutrition regimen, as well as diagnosing and monitoring certain medical conditions—but they require extensive input at a manual level and only a small percentage of users continue utilizing them after the initial trial. Think about it—how many of these tracker apps have you deleted within a week of downloading?
When I’m not helping people sell their technology companies I’m usually Crossfitting, or doing something that involves moving heavy weight quickly. I’ve tried all the aforementioned gadgets, and one thing has been made obvious: Analog wearables failed for lack of good software, and apps need robust and specialized hardware in order to gather and deliver meaningful data.
Enter next-gen wearables—devices that collect several layers of motion capture data and specialized analysis, and provide custom, real-time feedback to the user based on actual data rather than pre-programmed algorithms like a treadmill’s calorie counter. Today’s wearables bring out the power of the smartphone for occasions when you aren’t willing to use or carry it—on runs, swims, or other activities where the risk of damaging your phone isn’t worth the reward.
This is only a hint of where the world is heading. Google and Apple are spending hundreds of millions on the belief that modern consumers want to harness the capabilities of sophisticated sensors and hardware and turn them into sixth senses. Who wouldn’t want to have at their fingertips and on demand, the power military night vision, navigational clarity down a snowy ski-slope or in dark ocean water, actionable feedback on the body’s metabolism or form during a lift?
It may seem silly to suggest that people will soon ditch their iPhones in favor of an entire series watches, eyeglasses, and straps. But who would have thought that people would use their smartphones to email, play games, call a taxi, watch films, and do just about everything they relied on heavy laptops for?
Success won’t be easy or guaranteed. Aesthetics and design will matter even more than it did with the first iPhone. Wearable devices will be given the same scrutiny an expensive pair of jeans or designer suit will. But tech firms that marry design with hardware will own the future.
